Plants have historically served many medicinal purposes. The World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that 4 billion people, 80% of the world population, presently use herbal medicine for some aspect of primary health care. (WHO Fact sheet Fact sheet No 134 December 2008) However, it can be difficult to isolate the specific compound that has the medicinal effect and to reproduce it on a commercial scale. Additionally, while active compounds may be isolated from a plant, the other parts of a plant such as the minerals, vitamins, volatile oils, glycosides, alkaloids, bioflavanoids, and other substances may also be involved in the functioning of the active ingredient, or the medicinal effect for which the plant is known making the use, purification and commercialization of plant based pharmaceutical agents a challenge.
Phorbol is a natural, plant-derived organic compound of the tigliane family of diterpenes. It was first isolated in 1934 as a hydrolysis product of croton oil derived from the seeds of Croton tiglium, a leafy shrub of the Euphorbiaceae family that is native to Southeastern Asia. Various esters of phorbol have important biological properties including the reported ability to mimic diacylglycerols and activate protein kinase C (PKC), modulating downstream cell signaling pathways including the mitogen-activated protein kinase (MAPK) pathways. Phorbol esters are additionally thought to bind to chimaerins, the Ras activator RasGRP, and the vesicle-priming protein Munc-13 (Brose N, Rosenmund C., JCell Sci; 115:4399-411 (2002)). Some phorbol esters also induce nuclear factor-kappa B (NF-κB). The most notable physiological property of phorbol esters is their reported capacity to act as tumor promoters. (Blumberg, 1988; Goel, G et al., Int, Journal of Toxicology 26, 279-288 (2007)).
12-O-tetradecanoylphorbol-13-acetate (TPA), also called phorbol-12-myristate-13-acetate (PMA), is a phorbol ester used in models of carcinogenesis as an inducer for differentiation and/or apoptosis in multiple cell lines and primary cells. TPA has also been reported to cause an increase in circulating white blood cells and neutrophils in patients whose bone marrow function has been depressed by chemotherapy (Han Z. T. et al. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. 95, 5363-5365 (1998)) and inhibit the HIV-cytopathic effects on MT-4 cells. (Mekkawy S. et al., Phytochemistry 53, 47-464 (2000)). However, due to a variety of factors, including caustic reactions when contacted with the skin and concerns for its potential toxicity, TPA has not been shown to be an effective tool for treating, managing, or preventing HIV or AIDS or as an adjuvant to chemotherapy. Indeed, as phorbol esters play a key role in activation of protein kinase C (PKC), which triggers various cellular responses resulting in inflammatory responses and tumor development (Goel et al., Int, Journal of Toxicology 26, 279-288 (2007)), phorbol esters would generally be excluded from possible treatment candidates for cancer or inflammatory diseases such as rheumatoid arthritis or conditions that involve inflammatory reactions such as stroke, autoimmune disorders or prostate hypertrophy.
As modern medicine has developed, survival rates from both chronic and acute disease has increased, generating new challenges in managing both chronic conditions and the sequelae of acute disease and treatment side effects. There is a continuing need for the identification of pharmaceutical agents, including plant based pharmaceutical agents, which can be used to treat disease, prevent damage from acute episodes, manage the symptoms of disease conditions, and manage the side effects of disease treatments. While molecular targeting has produced a number of successful pharmaceutical agents, frequently multiple pathways of signaling are involved, and blocking one pathway can easily be compensated for elsewhere. There is clearly a need for new and more effective treatments and side effect management for individuals suffering from a variety of conditions, particularly chronic or potentially recurring conditions such as cancer, immune disorders, autoimmune disorders, stroke, rheumatoid arthritis, inflammation, uterine fibroids, prostate hypertrophy, urinary incontinence, Parkinson's disease and kidney disease.